Published: March 23, 2008 12:17 am         

Puzzle program promotes the positive

By JESSE DAVIS

jesse.davis@goshennews.com

NEW PARIS, Ind. — Students at New Paris Elementary School are learning to express appreciation for their fellow classmates through a program that has them in pieces.

Each week, a student from each 15- to 16-child classroom is chosen at random to be the focus for the “You’re an Important Piece of the Puzzle” program. The class is given a large construction paper puzzle piece with the particular student’s name written on it.

Their classmates then have the rest of the week to write things they like about that person on the piece. At the end of the week, the chosen students have doughnuts and milk with the principal, have their names read during announcements and get to take their puzzle piece home.

“I see them at the end of the week roll their piece up very carefully and take it out on the bus,” fourth-grade teacher John Christner said.

“They enjoy making positive comments, and it creates a positive atmosphere,” Christner said. “I read out loud what the kids say, and I’ll see the student in question stand up a little taller and a little taller and a little taller.”

Last year, the school ran a program called “Helping All to Succeed,” or HATS. The idea for the current program was suggested by Janece Smallwood at an earlier PTO meeting.

“I had seen something like it in a magazine at work and had done something similar before,” Smallwood said. “Some kids get lost in the cracks, and programs like this are important because they are all individual people.”

Smallwood is a member of a school steering committee made up of teachers and parents that reviews the school accountability plan.

Principal Chuck Richards enjoys the program and looks forward to his Friday morning “meetings.”

“What I like about it is that sometime between now and the end of the year, every student in the school will be recognized,” Richards said. “(On Friday mornings) I always ask if they want to share anything, but a lot are still pretty shy about it.”

Other proponents point out the program’s ability to help children learn about each others’ hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes as well as looking at each other in a different light.

Nancy Berger, second-grade teacher and unofficial spokesperson for the program, uses it as a practical teaching tool in addition to its esteem-building basis.

“In the second grade class we’re working on sentences. I use the puzzle pieces to go further and expand,” she said. “It’s a teaching moment.”

The program also includes a large display within the school put together by the climate committee, made up of teachers and staff. The display features interlocking puzzle pieces, one for each class, with the names of all the students of that class written on it and a photo of the students below.

The program started at the beginning of the spring semester. According to Richards, they will probably run some sort of survey by students and parents at the end of the year. Due to the success and popularity of the program, however, he is considering its future.

“It’s not been a lot of work for the teachers,” Richards said. “We’ll probably continue next year then expand on it.”